FOMO, GOMO, ROMO and other summer neuroses

I would love to be one of those visionary people who coin new words that become so popular that they even have their own verbal conjugations. I think about how many articles have been written about having FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for its English acronym, or what amounts to the same thing, that fear of missing out on something – wanting to be in the thick of it? – and I think I need a new word to define how I feel this summer. According to the consulted sources, that is, the internet, the thing would be between GOMO (Greed Of Missing Out) and ROMO (Reluctance On Missing Out); on the one hand, wanting to be everywhere, but at the same time not worrying too much about missing things. A week ago I ran out of my mobile phone and for five days I didn't go on social media, nor did I send messages until I got home and sat in front of the computer, as if it were 1999 and I had left Messenger connected. Now that I've revealed my age and my inclination to use Anglicisms, I can also share that I wish I had got my phone back a week later, because then I wouldn't have seen what absolutely everyone – except me – seems to be at a festival, watching my favorite artists. Badly recorded videos with shaky zooms, photos with aesthetic aspirations of a dripping beer, hugs, bracelets, and the feeling again that everyone was there except me. Yes, I know that's not the case, but forty Instagram stories will make you believe it. I'm not there, because this is my second summer as a mother and, moreover, I'm expecting my second and walking two steps in this suffocating heat makes me more anxious than missing Florence + The Machine's set at MadCool. Now I've swapped my festival summers for afternoons by the village pool, bike rides at 7:00 AM, reading stories, and making homemade ice cream with watermelon, mango, and Greek yogurt. My Instagram is a combination of baby-led weaning recipes and people living in the Estrella Damm advertisement.And it's okay. Because I've also lived through all of this. In fact, I'm metaphorically crying in this first column now, because hormones have given me the superpower to be honest with all the strangers reading this column, but, in reality, this choice is mine and a couple of weeks ago I was at a concert and soon I'll be at a festival, even if it's a thousandth of what I used to do. Hence my need to create a new acronym that defines that I want to be in the broth and in the slices, but that I am also more comfortable than ever in my new skin, aware that this moment is my cardinal point where I had to be.This dichotomy not only applies to the fact that I'm not at festivals, but it goes a little further; the right balance to make me anxious from time to time. To this new identity, added to the many others I've built over thirty-something years, I now add that of being a mother. Furthermore, you want to be one of those present mothers, who makes healthy meals in all the colors of the Pantone palette, who has wooden Montessori toys, who plans weekends with activities that enrich the life of the child and the whole family, and one who doesn't lose her head when almost nothing she had planned goes as she thought. But you don't want this new identity to take up all the space of your being; as if Venom wanted to take absolute control over Eddie Brock. Curiously, this Marvel character is also a reporter, so all of a sudden I look at him as if he perfectly understood the fragility of this alien-person/child-mother symbiosis. Because, beyond concerts, there is something else that also beats in this invisible space, and that is time – and quality time – to dedicate to doing the things that define who you are. I am a journalist. And even though I write infinitely less than I would like, I will always introduce myself as such. Writing has been part of my identity for as long as I can remember. This is a double-edged sword, because at the same time it frustrates me when I see all the concerts I covered, the pace of interviews I did, and the three projects I used to juggle. Perhaps this summer — and surely the next and the next — I will attend far fewer festivals than I would like and, instead, I will have learned a handful of cool recipes made with broccoli and zucchini. And I am aware of it. Perhaps I will never write as much as I used to again. Or maybe I will. Sitting with my laptop on the sofa, taking advantage of the duration of a summer nap and before heading to the village pool, I seize this moment of honesty and vindication of all my personalities to introduce myself. Because, beyond all the women I am, I will always be a journalist.